Anyone in Oregon owning a drone fitted with a camera could be jailed for six months, or a year if it's caught flying, if a new state law is passed. The rules were proposed to tackle, among other things, peeping toms gazing into bedroom windows.
Draft legislation before the Oregon State Senate would, if put into the statute books …

What is the UK's take on a drone camera?

Re: What is the UK's take on a drone camera?

Re: What is the UK's take on a drone camera?

You can pick up a ready made one pretty cheap, Klaas Olsen do / did one for about £20 if I remember correctly (Helicpoter rather than "Drone" but I used it to check the gutters and I have no R/C flying experience (well, I do now obviously)

Re: What is the UK's take on a drone camera?

"Wouldn't a ladder be cheaper?"

Depends how high your gutter is and how long a ladder you feel comfortable climbing. Mine high above the first floor (second floor for American viewers) and would have to set it up, climb up and down, move it, repeat.

Was also thinking camera-on-a-stick with optional attachments to clear any problems.

Re: a pole?

Re: a pole?

Re: ... the traditional method: Binoculars or telescope.

Especially if you live in a big city with lots of high rise buildings. I hear that "sky-watching" is the rage in some areas. (You know, observing "heavenly bodies" - especially [in my case] nice female bodies!)

"....make the act of attaching a camera to a flying machine illegal."

Re: "....make the act of attaching a camera to a flying machine illegal."

They'd probably say you'd no longer be allowed to fly such a machine in Oregon if the law passes. Owning such a device before the law passes would be a grey area due to prohibitions on retroactive statutes, but if the law passes, FLYING one would almost certainly be forbidden, built-in or not.

Re: "....make the act of attaching a camera to a flying machine illegal."

I dunno, but I'd be pretty annoyed if I'd spent £300 on a Parrot AR.Drone and then told I couldn't fly it. Presumably selling R/C helicopters, camcorders and gaffer tape in one purchase will be illegal too?

The thing that struck me as the most alarming though, is that bills can be introduced anonymously in the first place??

Re: "....make the act of attaching a camera to a flying machine illegal."

I wonder how they'd categorise the satellites that are currently photographing the Earth in great detail? Are these defined as flying machines when in geo-stationary orbit? When a satellite re-enter is it a flying or a falling machine?

Re: "....make the act of attaching a camera to a flying machine illegal."

"I wonder how they'd categorise the satellites that are currently photographing the Earth in great detail? Are these defined as flying machines when in geo-stationary orbit? When a satellite re-enter is it a flying or a falling machine?"

Although there is such a thing as national airspace, there's no such thing as national 'spacespace'. Anyone can park anything anywhere. Though recon birds aren't geostationary, as a rule.

Re: "....make the act of attaching a camera to a flying machine illegal."

The ones photographing in "great detail" aren't satellites - the resolution only goes down to about 0.5m, I think due to US restrictions already! The ones taking high detail stuff is aerial photography, and are licensed

Re: "....make the act of attaching a camera to a flying machine illegal."

It seems to me...

that attaching micro-cams to your toys is the big new thing in the world of modelling. I was at a model railway show at the weekend, and they had a driver's eye view from one of the trams, with a mock-up of the driver's controls so that people could have a go. Half the layouts had train cams, whereas a couple of years ago there were only one or two. I can see the appeal even more for aviation modelling. You can even get controllers with built in LCD screens now. This seems a case where intention is the culprit rather than the technology. Why not insist that all of these hobbyist cameras transmit unencrypted/scrambled?

Re: It seems to me...

"micro-cams to your toys is the big new thing in the world of modelling. I was at a model railway show at the weekend"

Not so new. The American firm Lionel (OK, not exactly "model" trains at the time, but bear with me) introduced their "RailScope" system (nose-mounted mini-camera) in 1988. They did have the advantage at the time of having locomotives big enough to carry a late-80s size video camera.

Re: exempting law enforcement or other govt agencies

My first thought was 'about fucking time'; but on reflection, I can see many legitimate uses for the technology. None of them involve intruding on someone's privacy.

If this even stands a chance of passing, then I feel that there are some exceptions that are in order, such as flying over public spaces, operating a drone over your own property (think farmers and anyone who owns large tracts of land) for starters. Flying your drone, with or without a camera in it, over a county/state/national park should NOT be a crime. A farmer, flying a drone over a his own acreage to check for loose livestock, intruders (poachers), crop observation, etc., should NOT be a crime!!!!

What I would not object to are provisions that restrict operation over backyards, etc; perhaps a requirement for some kind of identifying number (aka 'tail number') - to allow prosecution of those who choose to use their drone in unacceptable ways.

Re: Or just....

Re: Or just....

> legislate against that which you want to restrict - looking into people's bedrooms.

>

> Of course, that's already illegal, so they'd have nothing to do.

Is it illegal if done from a public place, though?

On those UK 'fly on the wall' police shows, such as "road wars" / "street wars" / "cops with cameras" etc. you often get the case where the suspect shouts "get that camera off me", and the policemen always (correctly) respond with "He's in a public place, he can record what he wants" [ though of course, the police view on this seems to change when they are being recorded.

Re: Or just.... (@ Elmer Phud)

Re: Or just....

"What happens when you get paparazzi-style telephoto lenses attached which can be flown over public areas and are taking pictures from a mile away?"

They get very blurry photographs.

You can't use a high-power telephoto lens from a model aeroplane and expect to get a usable photograph. You'd probably struggle to even get the 'plane in the air with your $10,000 lens unless it was pretty large, too.

Do they realise just how many people they are about to criminalise? The Model Aircraft market alone is huge, with many enthusiasts attaching cameras to their craft for the purpose of recording their flights, not to mention certain ball-ocket experiments and other high altitude boffinry.

RC hobbyists

Be that as it may, the law will still make the innocent act of attaching a $200 camera kit to your probably-already-more-expensive-than-that RC chopper or plane a crime. Instead of assuming such machines will be used by individuals for nefarious purposes, as seems to be the way of modern legislation, existing privacy laws should be applied to individuals who misuses their toys.

Law enforcement is REACTIVE. PROACTIVE law enforcement gets into the realm of attempting to determine one's intentions before he or she formulates the intention or executes the action, resulting in everyone being a criminal before given the chance to not be one. This makes the abhorrent assumption that people have no other attachment to doing right, or not doing wrong depending upon the theory applied, which is an affront to personal liberties.

Re: RC hobbyists

RC vehicles are /*very*/ popular and with the decrease in cost, improvements in power economy and an overall decrease in weight; attaching cameras to these vehicles is becoming a very common practise.

An example, are the Quadrotor thingies you can buy that can be controlled from your phone, they have a camera installed by default and for good reason; they are easier to fly when you can get an in-flight POV rather than an external observer's POV.

Have a poke around youtube for people attaching cameras to flying stuff and you will find plenty of people doing it.

Also search on Google for "rc controlled helicopter with camera" and you will find many examples of RC choppers with HD cameras included. They don't make these sorts of things unless there is a market for it. Furthermore, the fact that you can buy an RC helicopter with an onboard video camera for less than £50 indicates, to me at least, that there is a substantial market for such 'toys'.

Re: RC hobbyists

"Law enforcement is REACTIVE. PROACTIVE law enforcement gets into the realm of attempting to determine one's intentions before he or she formulates the intention or executes the action, resulting in everyone being a criminal before given the chance to not be one. This makes the abhorrent assumption that people have no other attachment to doing right, or not doing wrong depending upon the theory applied, which is an affront to personal liberties."

But REACTIVE is now too slow for people. By then, the tragedy (Sandy Hook, Oklahoma City, 9/11) has already occurred and people are dead. That's too late. The move now is towards PRE-crime: preventing the tragedy from actually taking place so people don't die. Because if PRE-crime is such a bad time, how bad would it be compared to someone YOU love being the next to die become of some crime no one anticipated in time?